Chapter 3

Shadow:

"Well, now that you two have names," says Hellboy, "it's time that you two got a bath. Here, Myers, hold them while I get their bath ready."

He hands us over to the human, and walks through a side door I hadn't noticed before. Myers puts us back in the basket we woke up in and leaves muttering something about Manning and hitting the roof. I immediately go to my glove and cuddle up with it and look around the room.

The room is mostly in the dark and there are no windows. There's a wall of TVs, an unmade bed in the middle of the room, a table with some chairs around it off to the side, and candy wrappers are all over the floor. I can hear water running on the far side of the door Hellboy went through.

"Where do you think he went?" asks Alley. "Why does he have to get ready for our bath? How's he going to wash us with that tongue?"

"I don't know," I answer. "Why is there water running?"

"I don't know," she says. "Isn't this great? No more looking for food, no more getting wet from the rain, and a nice soft bed to sleep in. Not to mention all the mischief we can get into."

Luckily, the other cats are still keeping their distance, but they are watching us. I start kneading my glove nervously. A short time later I hear the water stop and Hellboy comes back through the door.

"Hey, Myers, bring the kittens..." He looks around for Myers. He doesn't look very happy about the lack of Myers in the room. He spots us in our basket, and starts heading for us.

"Ok, girls, it is bath time," he says as he picks us up. I clutch my glove instinctively. He starts heading for the side door again.

"So, how do you think he's going to be able to wash us with that tongue?" ask Alley again.

Before I can say anything, we're through the door. The light in here is dazzling after being in that dark room. I blink several times, and notice that the air is a bit humid and I can smell water. This room has what might have been white walls at one time, but now they're a dingy gray. There's a funny shaped chair that seems to be made out of what looks to be some sort of smooth stone. It's the same color as the walls. There are also two basins with holes in the bottom of each of them also of the same smooth stone. The small one is empty, but the big one has a couple of inches of water in it.

Kneeling down next to the basin with the water in it, Hellboy transfers us to his right hand and says, "You won't need that." He takes away my glove.

"Hey!" I mew at him, trying to get my glove back.

Just then, he dumps Alley and me into the water.

"HEY!" I screech at him.

He starts to quickly dump more water on us.

"STOP THAT!" I yowl at him. "AAHHH! HE'S TRYING TO DROWN US!"

I try to climb up the sides of the basin to get out, but there are no cracks to get my claws into. I turn to get help from Alley, but she's busy chasing bubbles in the water.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" I scream at her.

"HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR MIND!?"

"This is fun," she says as she pounces on a particularly large bubble.

At that moment, Hellboy reaches into the basin with his right hand. This basin may not have any cracks in it, but his hand sure does. I'm up his arm before he can blink. At the top of the stone part of his arm, I leap for freedom over his shoulder.

"Hey, you. Come back here," he yells grabbing for me. In mid leap, he catches me, but he over balances and lands flat on his back.

Just then there's a flash of light and a whirring noise. I blink and look up at a human woman with long black hair standing in the doorway. She's holding some weird machine that seems to be sticking its tongue out at us. She's laughing.

"You better plan on burning that," growls Hellboy as he gets up off the floor and dumps me back in the water.

"Not a chance," she laughs at him. "I ran into John in the hallway and he told me what you were about to do. I couldn't resist."

"Great," he mutters as he grabs a bottle and pours what seems to be about half of it onto me. He quickly rubs this stuff into my fur, making even more bubbles for Alley to chase. She's having a great time running around the basin. He's careful to keep his right hand out of my reach this time.

"LET ME OUT OF HEEEEERRREEE!!" I howl.

"Boy that one's loud," says the woman.

"I WANT OUT!!"

"Yeah, this one's Shadow," says Hellboy as he dumps more water on me.

"The other one is Alley. Liz, grab a towel would you? Shadow's done."

Hellboy picks me up and hands me over to Liz who wraps me in a towel.

She starts rubbing me over with the towel. The water still in my fur starts to cool and I start to shiver. Suddenly, the towel starts to get warm and to dry out. Then I start to get warm and dry out. I just look up at her and purr.

A moment later, Hellboy stands up with Alley wrapped in a towel. His front is completely soaked.

"Shadow was easier," he grumbles as he hands Alley to Liz while taking me from her.

"How so?" Liz asks. I can see steam starting to rise from the towel.

"Alley was so busy playing in the water, it was hard to catch her long enough to get the soap on her," he says as he takes me out of the still warm towel and starts drying himself with it. "And you know what? I think she actually wanted to splash water on me."

Liz chuckles as she takes Alley out of the towel and hands her to Hellboy. He holds both of us in his left hand and picks up my glove in the other hand. I try to get my glove back, but it's to far away.

They walk back into the dark room. Abe is waiting there.

"Hey, Abe. What's up?" asks Hellboy.

"I've just finished my report," answers Abe as he walks up to us and holds his hand out. There's webbing between his blue fingers.

"You might want to do the same soon. Manning is already quite upset. May I have my glove back, please?"

"Sure," says Hellboy as he hands my glove to Abe.

"Hey!" I say, "That's mine!"

I make a leap for it. But before I can grab my glove, Abe grabs me. He hands me to Hellboy and takes my glove and leaves.

"That was mine," I whine at Abe's retreating back. I turn to Hellboy.

"Make him give it back."

"You know," he says to Liz, "I think she liked that glove."

He drops us into our basket and goes out the big door again with Liz following.

"You really did like that glove, didn't you, sis?" asks Alley.

"Yeah," I say, moping.

"Then what say we get it back?" says Alley with a gleam in her eye.